We can now add another 2450 miles, making our grand total now 21380 nautical miles, plus three more countries – New Zealand, New Caledonia and Australia, bringing that total to 28 countries. Here’s the map.
This part of Queensland is very agricultural and the main crop in the Bundaberg area is sugar cane. The famous Bundaberg Rum comes from here. The town itself is rather sweet - the street layout and architecture, farming people, surrounding geography and climate were all intensely reminiscent of small farming towns in Rhodesia, as it was in my youth. As a result, we felt quite homesick, and felt a sudden sharp determination to settle in Queensland. We did actually try quite hard and visited a number of farms with ‘Red’, our long suffering estate agent. It was an interesting and entertaining exercise for us, but our funds were never going to be enough and we eventually gave up.
I had taken my video camera back to UK to see if it could be repaired, but in this ‘throw away’ society it was going to be too expensive, so I finally abandoned it. I did, however, buy myself a digital camera, so practically all the photos from now on are ours.
Farmlands in Bundaberg
Our friends Des and Ali (Alii Nui) came over and had a barbeque with us on the dock. These are the folk I mentioned who successfully managed to settle in Queensland. They and their two sons are still there and very happy, floods notwithstanding. Australia is well set up for the outdoor life and there are excellent free facilities for barbeques, washing and toilets in many public areas, parks, etc. It was impressive and very convenient for travellers like us.
At the 'barbie' with Des and Ali
We also saw Colin (Solvesta) who has a son in Australia. I should very much like to have done some travelling inland, like Colin was doing, but it was not to be. I never saw a dingo, wallaby, koala bear or even a wild kangaroo – just one at a zoo once. Our scriptwriter friend James, who we’d met in New Cal, had a brother here, Robert, who we looked up. He was very kind, invited us to dinner, took us touring, and lent us a car for the next two weeks. Whilst I was away in the UK, Mike met Fiona and Ray on Moonshadow. And, at some fantastic point, he fixed 'George' for good. I'm not sure what the problem had been, but our autopilot was as good as gold from that day on, taking a lot of strain off.
And so, having given up on the immigration issue, we left Bundaberg on 18 August and started sailing up the Coral Sea towards Cairns. The Great Barrier Reef stretches from Fraser Island, just east of Bundaberg, all the way to the Torres Strait so we were effectively within this famous reef all the way up the east coast of Australia, not that you can actually see it, but it does provide some protection from the outside ocean.
And so, having given up on the immigration issue, we left Bundaberg on 18 August and started sailing up the Coral Sea towards Cairns. The Great Barrier Reef stretches from Fraser Island, just east of Bundaberg, all the way to the Torres Strait so we were effectively within this famous reef all the way up the east coast of Australia, not that you can actually see it, but it does provide some protection from the outside ocean.
Sunrise in the Coral Sea
Most Australian yachts check in with the coastguards when they leave port, give their destination and e.t.a., and then call in again when they arrive. This service is provided free of charge by volunteers and provides a sense of security to sailors. In theory, if you don’t arrive when expected, a search party would be arranged. We started out using this service, but the night we arrived in the Whitsunday Islands, radio reception was poor and we were unable to make contact. This didn’t appear to bother anyone. We managed to contact them the following morning on the way out, but the man on the radio wasn’t aware of our yacht and appeared to care not one jot. After that, we decided we wouldn’t bother these good volunteers.
In the Whitsundays
Although we made many stops and tried to do this trip in day sails, at times we had to travel overnight and on one occasion had a nasty near-miss with a large ship – a tanker or freight ship. Unbeknownst to us, the tricolour light at the top of our mast had stopped working, so we were effectively invisibly through the night. We spotted this ship that just kept coming towards us, altered course a couple of times, but he seemed to just keep on coming straight at us. In desperation, when he was almost upon us, we got him on the radio; there followed a bit of frantic communication at which point we both altered course. After the danger had been alerted, the skipper advised that he had not seen us, either visually or on radar. We were a bit shocked, and only then noticed that our light wasn’t working. But our radar reflector was installed and we were concerned that he hadn’t detected us on radar.
There was an Australian yacht behind us who then chipped in on the radio and advised that they also could not see us. There was nothing we could do about our light not working, so we continued in the dark. Shortly after, the lights of the Aussie yacht appeared behind us and for courtesy we put our running lights on. They passed and we exchanged pleasantries with the skipper, but he advised that he was still unable to detect us on radar. As the night wore on we passed a few other ships and asked all of them if they were able to pick us up on radar and they all could! We met this yacht again in Cairns – the man was friendly and pleasant but the woman was all atwitter couldn’t help expressing her deep disapproval, saying she had passed ‘the worst night of her life, worrying about us, and how could we possibly be so irresponsible as to sail without lights?!!!’ Considering their yacht was ahead of us and we were all going in the same direction, we felt her worried concern was a little over the top. Pointless to remind her that we hadn’t known our mast light wasn’t working at that time, and that thereafter every time we saw another ship we put our running lights on. We met them quite often after that, all the way to Thailand, but needless to say, they didn’t become friends.
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